Jinmirai
by Ciircee
Summary: A peek at Chiharu and Yamazaki's life in the Third Arc; short and sweet. It can be read without having to read the other Third Arc stories.


Disclaimer: Mine! All mine! Okay, wait...no. CLAMP! All CLAMP's!

Dedication: To Chelle-sama, as always. And to everybody who has ever cooed over how cute Yamazaki and Chiharu are. Oh, I'm such a sap. Sap, sap, sap.

Notes to note: Timeline-wise, this takes place four or so years after 'Kahou' and several months after the events in 'Medetai'. This, like almost all of the Third Arc, can be read without having to read all the other stories in the series. But why would you want to skip the others, ne?

Title Translation: [jinmirai] (n) eternally/forever

_Jinmirai_

"Sensei?" The quiet voice cut across what Yamazaki was saying and he looked at the owner of the tiny voice. The teary-eyed witness to the accident sat in her mother's lap, chewing on one end of a ragged baby-blanket for comfort.

"Hmm?" Yamazaki placed another suture with barely a glance. "What's wrong, Kohana-chan?"

"'toshi-sa' got big ow." Dark blue eyes blinked as tears began to roll down pale, blotchy cheeks, "'toshi-sa got big, big ow."

"Chiyochohoshi-san always got a big ow," Kohana's brother Reed rolled his eyes. "I knowed her since she was my age and she's always hurt." It didn't seem to help, Kohana kept crying. Tomoyo bit her lip and tried to sooth her daughter while stroking a calming hand over her sister's hair.

"Why don't you come lay down with me?" Rika's gentle voice floated across the first-aid tent. She sat up from the cot she was laying on, pressed a hand to her forehead and laid back down with a soft sigh. "You can snuggle with me and I'll tell you a story about a very special Sports Day from when your Mama and Auntie Sakura and I were all little girls and it rained flowers."

"Like me?" Kohana slid away from her mother and toddled across the first-aid tent.

"Not quite," Rika laughed and Yamazaki shot her a grateful smile. 

Chiyochohoshi poked at her arm with interest. "Is it going to leave a scar?" 

"Not really," Yamazaki placed another neat stitch. "I'm not using ants, so it'll leave a tiny white line, if anything."

"Ants?" Reed poked at his cousin and Yamazaki pushed his hands away while finishing his last stitch. "Why would you use ants?"

Yamazaki raised the needle. "In ancient times in South America people used to do complex surgeries...just like now. However," he shook a topical spray and aimed at his patient, "they didn't have our sorts of tools. So instead of stitches they used ants. They would try to injure themselves just to have the ants put in because they were such large and pretty ants and of course, having the scar was a mark of honor."

"You could use ants, right? If you wanted to? And maybe next time I could have a great big scar and I could tell people about the ants?" Chiyochohosi beamed at him.

"I don't think so," Chiharu's voice laughed before Yamazaki could think of a reply. "The thing you're forgetting about Takashi-sensei is that he likes to tell stories." He shook his head; eight months pregnant and he'd left her at the office in the hopes of her actually resting so of course she'd show up at the first aid tent.

Chiyochohoshi blinked as Yamazaki placed a water tight seal over the stitches. "Leave it on for today, if you see signs of infections then let us know. You don't need the sheets or the office number, right?" His young patient rolled her eyes and slid off the table with a grace that was truly astounding, all things considered.

"Why are you here, Takashi-sensei? I thought you weren't going to be here? Is the baby coming? Is it coming right now? Can I _see_?" 

Mercifully, Tomoyo smothered her younger sister and her son and smiled apologetically. Chiharu chuckled and shook her head. "The baby isn't coming and no, I wasn't supposed to be at Sports Day." Chiharu shrugged on the lab coat that hung just inside the first aid tent and sighed. "But it's a good thing I'm here. Kinomoto-sensei, Kinomoto-sensei, Daidouji-Kinomoto-sama, and Tsukishiro-san are all on their way over and they're bleeding."

"_Again_?" Rika sat up on her cot, tucking Kohana against her automatically. Yamazaki watched Chiharu's worried frown melt away into a smile as Rika beamed and placed a finger against her lips. Tomoyo was smiling too. Women, he decided, were a bit strange.

"Kinomoto-sensei and Daidouji-Kinomoto-sama are in every year," he confirmed for Rika as Tomoyo helped him set up another cot.

Chiharu set up another exam table and put out more gauze. "It's a tradition, now."

"Normally," Tomoyo frowned, "Mother and Kinomoto-papa don't involve innocents."

Yamazaki grinned, "They're having to get creative. Did you know that in ancient Greece..."

"Save it for later, Yamazaki," Chiharu slipped an arm around Sakura's father and helped him to the exam table. "Kinomoto-sensei, are those cleat marks?"

Chiyochohoshi sighed. "Otousan, you can't let Okasama do this to you every year. Oniisama loses stock options every time he has to disqualify her and Oneesama already owns his manga company."

"I didn't even have to disqualify her this year," Li Syaoran was helping Touya onto a cot. "Gifu-san knocked her over just before the finish line."

All eyes swung over to elder Kinomoto-sensei. "It was an accident," he smiled benignly. 

"I was winning," Sonomi sighed deeply, "and then he cheated."

Sakura juggled the baby on her hip and laughed. "Keibo, you sound just the opposite of Daddy!" She smiled at everybody, beaming. "I left Eriol-san with the other children, Tomoyo-chan. He'll be over by the lunch stands if you want to go find him."

"Fine. Li-kun, you can either earn more share-holdings and stay with Mother or you can take Chiyochohoshi over to the lunch counter for ice-creams. She's had another fall at the hurdles."

Yamazaki shared a quick, happily commiserating look with his wife before setting to work cleaning the various wounds sustained by the Kinomoto clan. He let the argument over accident versus deliberate, stock options for Li Enterprises and Daidouji Toys, and whether or not disqualification was appropriate pass over his head without listening to it. Despite the turnaround of events, it was a familiar conversation. "Does anybody need the handout on stitches care, concussions or sprains?" he asked as he finished wrapping Tsukishiro's ankle. 

"No thanks, Sensei," Touya sat up dizzily and eyed his own wrist. "I forget, will I need to wear gloves over this bandage? My graduate class is using flammables tomorrow."

Chiharu checked his pupils and shook her head, shooting Yamazaki another quick smile. "No, Sensei, we invested in the fire-retardant brand after the incident with Chiyochohoshi-chan and the cake. You're fine, acetaminophen for the pain; any blurred vision, come to the offices." She waved most of them out of the tent while Yamazaki set himself to cleaning up. "Rika-san," he heard her voice, soft and compassionate and smiled to himself as he readied for any more potential patients. "If you're feeling better, walking around would be good for you. Silver-needle tea, honey-milk and meadow saffron," he could hear her writing and frowned. For some reason, that list of supplies sounded familiar. 

"Thank you. If it's alright, I'd like to make an appointment for next week," Rika, when Yamazaki glanced over his shoulder was blushing and smiling. He hadn't seen her look so happy since her wedding, he thought. 

"You don't need an appointment. Come whenever you'd like." Chiharu hugged her before she left.

Yamazaki folded his arms as his wife went into the back area of the tent. He followed her with a shake of his head. "Chiharu," the question about what was going on with Rika faded as he watched her rub her back and slump into a chair, resting her chin on the makeshift supply counter. "Back ache?" he asked instead, pushing his knuckles into the tense muscles at the small of her back.

"Mm-hm." Beneath his hands, his wife melted and sighed. "Always." 

He placed a kiss at the nape of her neck, "You were supposed to stay at the office with your feet up," he reminded her.

She giggled. "And leave you to deal with the annual Sport's Day mess?" She giggled again, arching into his touch, "God bless Kinomoto-sensei, he must really love that woman."

"This year it was Kinomoto-sensei's fault," he chuckled. "God, what a family they are."

Chiharu hummed in agreement, eyes flickering closed. "They're the best advertising our office could ask for. Speaking of the office," she moaned as his fingers hit the one spot that always seemed to be the most tense. "We need another nurse; Megumi-san has had an offer that would allow her to move closer to home and she's accepted."

"I liked Megumi-san; she was good with the the older patients." Yamazaki said idly, watching the way Chiharu's hair gleamed with the light that filtered through the walls of the first aid tent. "Still, we should offer her our congratulations. If you think it's appropriate, we can let her take her vacation time before she goes to give her time to arrange her move. I can comb the schools for graduate students to fill in for her until we can find somebody."

"You're such a nice guy, Yamazaki," she buried her head in her arms and sighed deeply. Something more than being short-handed was on her mind and he waited, trusting that she would confide in him when she needed to. He didn't need to wait long. "Yamazaki, do you think we'll be as good as Tomoyo-san and Sakura-san and Kinomoto-sensei?" Chiharu's voice was muffled by her arms and Yamazaki had known her long enough to know that when she wouldn't look at him, she was deadly serious about her question.

He considered her question, kneading her back and moving up to her shoulders. "As good as parents?" he asked softly. She nodded, still not lifting her head. He nodded to himself. "I don't know what sort of father I'll be," he said at last. "I hope I'm as good as mine or yours." He kissed the crown of her head softly and pressed his cheek to it, wrapping his arms around her. "But I don't even have to think about what sort of mother you'll be."

"You don't?" her voice was still muffled and Yamazaki laughed.

"Of course I don't. Half of the time I don't even have to think about what you'd do or say, it's like you live in my brain. I've known you since the day I ran over you in the park when we were four; you protected me from your brothers even as you shouted at me. Then you had your mother buy us both juice. You let me teach you how to ski and how to sew and you kicked me in the shins the first time I told you that you couldn't cook. Then you cried because I had a bruise."

Chiharu buried her face in her hands and he could see her ears turn red. "Yamazaki..."

"You're you, Chiharu. You're generous and impulsive and sweet and, when the planets are aligned, you've got a temper the size of Tokyo Tower."

"Yamazaki!" she was looking at him now, laughter and embarrassment riding in her eyes.

"It's true," he told her grinning, unable to help himself. "But you let me tell my stories and you even sewed my last dress for the picture on the book jacket for Facts of True Fiction volume five." He stroked his fingers through her hair and along her cheek. "You cried for Rika-san when her great-grandmother died and you cried when Sakura-san and Li-san moved to Hong Kong. You were Tomoyo-san's back-up labor coach even though we had exams the week she was due." He traced a path to her chin, marveling anew at how smooth her skin was, how soft. Married for ten years and he still could hardly believe his luck. "Our baby is the luckiest baby ever; luckier than Reed and Kohana, luckier than Ye-ze, Qi, Sying, Chen, and An-tao. Luckier than any other baby in history, because it gets to call you 'Mama'.

There were tears on her cheeks when she stood and threw her arms around him. "Yamazaki, that's so dumb," she sniffled, tucking her face into his shirt.

"Of course it is. I'm luckier than the baby, you know," he murmured soothingly. "I get to see you be 'mama'. I get to watch it happen."

He felt her sigh, felt her shoulders move with her soft breathing. "I love you, Yamazaki."

"I love you, too."

_Yoyokagirinaku_

_(forever and ever)_


End file.
